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Brantford-Brant

City approves tax hike

City councillors have approved a 2018 operating budget that calls for spending of $148,085,022 million.

Councillors voted 6-3 in favour of the budget at an estimates committee meeting held Wednesday. The budget will come before councillors for final approval at a city council meeting on Dec. 19.

The budget represents an increase of 2.44 per cent over last year and translates into a 2.88 percent tax increase for the average residential homeowner with a home with an assessed value of $248,000. In dollar terms the percentage increase equals a tax increase of $86.34.

The budget results in a (1.20) reduction for the average multi-residential tax class, a 3.16 percent increase for the commercial tax class and 0.94 percent increase in the industrial tax class.

In voting for the operating budget, councillors approved the addition of several new expenditures and put community safety first. They also rejected attempts by Ward 3 Councillors Greg Martin and Dan McCreary to bring about some reductions in expenditure.

McCreary wanted to hve city staff prepare a list of reductions to enable a debate on a zero budget increase while Martin sought a $294,090.00 reduction to the Brantford Police Services budget.

“There have been some pretty big increases to the police budget in recent years,” Martin said. “This reduction is the cost of new hires and the big hit to the budget will come in 2019 when it will be about $500,000.

“The other aspect is that this is just the first phase of hiring. There will be more coming in 2019 and the impact will be huge.”

But other councillors defended the expenditure noting that the city is higher than the provincial average in some crime statistics and that the police service is dealing with a number of officers being off duty because of illness.

“This is not a 'nice to have,' this is necessary,” Mayor Chris Friel said. “The community is safe but it takes a lot of work to keep it all together.

“This helps offset the difficulties faced by the police and we also have to recognize that we taken on additional land – areas that require policing – with the boundary agreement.”

Taking away the planned hiring of new officers and civilian staff would be taking away from the safety of the community which is a basic expectation of residents, he added.

McCreary, in presenting his motion to garner some reductions in expenditure, noted that more than 50 per cent of those who responded to a city pre-budget survey called for a lowering of the tax rate. Other residents – about two-thirds who responded to the survey – called for the tax rate to remain at the 2017 rates.

But several councillors including John Sless (Ward 2) against the proposal.

“There was a time when we had zero budget increases and we're still paying for it now. We're still feeling the impact of that,” Sless said. “No one wants an increase but we have to look at the inevitable.

“There will be an increase, we're a bigger community now.”

Councilors have to find the balance between what residents want and their ability to pay, he added.

The list of expenditures approved by councillors Wednesday include:

A communications specialist at a cost of $74,840 in 2018.

$68,800 for the maintenance and operation of the Dufferin Club.

The addition of a law clerk at a cost of just over $63,000.

A technical systems specialist at a cost of just under $80,000 to handle technical issues for municipal staff.

The addition of a crew to handle tree maintenance at a cost of $240,000. The city has fallen behind in it's maintenance of trees resulting in a wait time of 18 months for service.

Hiring of a data engineer at a cost of about $94,300 to protect security of municipal computers systems and information.

Councillors also approved improvements to the transit system which include extending daytime route service to 9 p.m. and replacing the Sunday transit network with the weekday network. The cost of the improvements will come from gas tax money the city receives from the province and won't directly affect the city's operating budget.

As well, councillors approved adding an ambulance to the night shift at a cost of just over $373,600. Money for the new ambulance is scheduled to come from a council contingency fund and won't have an impact on the operating budget.

Brant County Ambulance is operated by the County of Brant and the cost is shared with the city. Plans call for city and county officials to meet to discuss the cost-sharing arrangement and plans to improve the service.